1971 Camaro Suspension Upgrade - Project Back to the Street: A Return To The Classroom

It has been a few months since you have last seen Project Back to the Street. To recap the story, we embarked on a mission to convert a heavily modified '71 Camaro from a dedicated bracket-racing ride into a ground pounding, corner carving, street-legal hot rod. In order for a return to Main Street, the Camaro had to go back to school-the students at the Mercer County Technical School (Pennington, New Jersey) are handling the work, under the watchful eye of head instructor Bob Gonier.

2/22

Progress on the Camaro was hot and heavy for the first several months, but the relocation of the Super Chevy headquarters to Florida stopped forward motion this past summer. This month, we return to action and would like to refresh you on what we have accomplished to this point. Progress will resume next month as the students are revved up to tear back into our project car.

The trip back to the street has been a long one as the former race car was stripped down to a bare shell. This build-up is essentially a ground-up task, as if we purchased a bare shell. The good news was that the body is straight and we only had to replace the floors with new ones from Ground Up Restoration. Stripping the rest of the car was rather easy as the front-end was a three-piece fiberglass unit, which saves weight in a racing application, but was hardly street-worthy in our opinion. It was discarded and taking its place are new fenders, hood, nose and air dam, which we will cover in the near future. The interior and roll bar were gutted and cutout, as all new seats, dashboard, gauges, console, etc. will be employed. As you can tell by the illustration on page 86, the Camaro will enjoy a g-Machine appearance.

3/22

The drag racing-oriented suspension, front and aft, was removed and replaced with something a little more suited for the streets and corner carving. Super Chevy tapped Fat Man Fabrications for its Front Frame Stub kit. Gonier and his students unbolted the front subframe assembly, cleaned it up, added primer, and painted it black. The kit includes upper and lower tubular control arms, drop spindles, 12-inch four-piston Wilwood brakes, QA1 adjustable billet-aluminum coil-over shocks, and all the steering equipment to go along with the suspension and brakes. The front frame rides on Energy Suspension polyurethane body-bushings, giving the car a nice ride but keeps flex to a minimum when the driver gets aggressive.

4/22

Moving rearward, Fatman Fabrications came through its Triangulated Four-Bar rear suspension system. The guys at Fatman told us that Air Ride originally designed this suspension, but Fatman sells this setup for use with the less-complicated QA1 adjustable rear shocks. The four-bar setup is essentially a four-link rear suspension, although it doesn't look like the traditional four-link found in drag racing applications, where the bars are parallel. Instead, the Fatman/Air Ride suspension utilizes bolt-on chassis brackets (we welded ours) and the setup looks similar to what you'd find under something like a '78-83 Malibu. A Currie 9-inch was slung under the backside during the rear suspension installation. The iron housing came complete with 3.70 gears, 31-spline axles, and a limited-slip differential.

MORE PHOTOS

1971 Camaro Suspension Upgrade - Project Back to the Street: A Return To The Classroom

The talented John McBride drew this rendering of what Project Back To The Street looks like in our minds.

The ’71 Camaro was stripped and gutted of its race parts and then bolted on a rotisserie for its makeover into a corner-carving

G-machine. Ground Up Restoration provided new floors as the original ones were starting to rust.

We turned to Fatman Fabrications for the suspension mods, front and rear. The front control arms are shorter so we could fit wider wheels. The lower arms also offer adjustability for better and more accurate alignment. The upper arms allow for a more positive caster than the stock pieces. Both are adjustable to ensure caster/camber settings are optimum for performance. The ball joints are also designed for better handling and lower ride height.

Gonier and the students first assembled the front-end and welded pieces and brackets to the stock frame. Once the suspension was setup, they pulled it apart in order to paint the frame.

The Fatman spindles accept factory or aftermarket brakes, like the Wilwood binders shown here. The QA1 coilover shocks are a great bang-for-the-buck thanks to its adjustability for proper suspension tuning.

The front end was reassembled and the rear housing was coated to match the front framerails and freshly painted undercarriage. The body was ready to be lowered back down.

Energy Suspension provided a set of polyurethane body bushings.

The wheels of choice are called Fuel and produced by Rocket Racing Wheels. Nitto 555 rubber has been selected for the best in performance on and off the track.

A Currie 9-inch rear-end housing replaced the GM 10-bolt rear. The new housing was filled with 31-spline axles, limited differential, and 3.70 gears.

The rear came assembled, save for the Wilwood disc brakes and upper control arm brackets from Fatman Fabrications. Gonier had the rear coated for protection.

Carroll’s Rod and Racecraft welded the upper control arm brackets to the housing.

The rear brakes are massive 11-inch Wilwood ones. The inner hub of the disc had to be bored out at a local machine shop in order for the brakes to fit. The Wilwood kit also includes an emergency brake provision, which we added.

The Fatman/Air Ride kit comes with bolt-in brackets for the upper conrol arms. Gonier decided it was better to weld the brackets in place for durability since he knows this car will be driven hard once completed.

The lower control arms are bolted in easily and a new bracket is used on the front-mount—making the arm angle adjustable.

We also installed adjustable QA1 coilover shocks in the back. The rear suspension was set up with three-degrees of pinion angle and the new four-bar suspension didn’t bind up when we moved it through its entire range of motion. Tune in next month as class is back in session.